Mission & History

MISSION

Our missionis to help veterans coping with posttraumatic stress reduce social isolation and strengthen family, community, and professional bonds. We accomplish this mission through intensive filmmaking workshops enabling participants to collaborate with peers to process their service experiences. We also incorporate screening events that validate veterans’ experiences, advance community dialogue, and educate the public about the mental health challenges facing veterans and military families.

HISTORY

In 2011, having co-led film camps for several summers where teenage boys and girls produced short films largely centering on adolescent identity, Ben Patton wondered whether this same process of collaborating to create visual narratives this way could also benefit veterans returning from combat deployment as they sought to transition home and find their “new norm.” This inspiration led to the inception of the I WAS THERE Film Workshops initiative. In the Spring of 2011, he and a team of professional filmmakers were invited to host their veterans film workshop at the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Carson, CO where hundreds of soldiers were undergoing mental health treatment. Soon afterwards, he formed a non-profit organization, the Patton Veterans Project, to formally house the program.

Since then, the Patton Veterans Project (PVP) has hosted more than 50 film workshops at 8 military bases, VA hospitals, universities, and private clinics both in the US and Israel, enabling more than 1000 veterans from 18 to 80 to collaborate on more than 300 short films expressing their experiences. Along the way, PVP began conducting pre- and post-workshop surveys of participants, indicating that the workshop results in a significant drop in PTS symptoms, especially among those who report a PTSD diagnosis.

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Example: Yes, I would like to receive emails from Patton Veterans Project. (You can unsubscribe anytime)

Constant Contact Use.

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Patton Veterans Project, Inc., 17 East 97th Street, New York, NY, 10029, http://www.pattonveteransproject.org. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact